The Tangut princess stood atop the ruined temple, bloodied silk whipping in the storm. Beneath her bare feet, the cracked stones of the crumbling walls of Yinchuan pulsed with old magic. She raised her kartri dagger, chanting the Mahākāla Klau mantra, her voice swallowed by thunder.
Above her, the sky ripped open—a mandala of Kālarūpa Yamāntaka spun into being, his eight buffalo heads roaring, sixty-four arms clutching Mongol souls like grain. She offered her own breath, her kingdom’s ashes, her father’s skull.
“Let the Khan choke on his conquest,” she hissed.
Far away, in his tent, Genghis gasped as black fire filled his lungs.
The year was 1227. By the time the burning capital of the Great State of White and High fell, its gates battered into oblivion and streets stinking of spilled blood and Mongol steel, the dread leader of the invaders, Genghis Khan, lay dead, and the Mongols would have sweet, exquisite vengeance for his demise. We know that the Tanguts’ esoteric tradition of Mahakala worship was adopted by the Mongols, who would keep the Great Black One front and center of Vajrayana to the present day. But there are other legacies at play here, some that are so secret as to be almost lost, or at best fragmentary. These legacies remain as tantalizing whispers in the halls of Kumbum Monastery in Qinghai, the birthplace of Tsongkhapa and a monastery that I have a personal connection with. They also might be found at an ancient cave devoted Vajravarahi (Dorje Phagmo) on Vajravarahi Hill (亥母山) in Liangzhou, Gansu.

This is the story of a Tangut sorceress-queen who could have practiced under great Tibetan clerics hired by the Western Xia imperial court, like Sangye Ripa. She hated the Mongols, and they were happy to pursue her to the ends of the earth. For she represented the face of the mortal enemy, the eternal enemy, of the Mongols. The Tanguts. They were in a unique category of defiance: they’d not only stood in Genghis’ way after explicitly surrendering, breaking the bargain that guaranteed Mongol mercy, but it was their priests, their lamas from Tibet, who harnessed the ritual artillery of Mahakala and brought an end to Genghis himself. This sorceress-queen could have been party to such a ritual that felled the invincible khan, through a “black wind” plague (mentioned in some Mongol chronicles), or, chillingly, nightmare-inducing tantric rites. Tibetan sources claim Tangut lamas were capable of summoning spirit armies.
Then, as Yinchuan fell, she fled westward with her imperial guard and the remaining Tibetan lamas in the service of the court. She escaped through the Hexi Corridor with surviving Tangut loyalists and Tibetan monks. Her entourage took refuge in the Amdo and Qinghai areas, where Tangut Buddhists had pre-existing ties with Sakya and Kagyu monasteries. Then she led a last stand at the Tangut royal monastery called Gyal Lhakhang. This was a sacred mountain fortress that resisted the Mongols for a while, but even with the sorceress-queen’s wrathful Buddhist rituals, it fell and was razed.
There could be historical kernels in the legend, with a grain of truth in every fantastic tale or bold hypothesis. Tangut refugees DID flee to Qinghai (evidenced by Tangut-language manuscripts found in Kumbum Monastery). Tantric warfare might have been symbolic, but it was real: Tibetan lamas would later switch employers, with Mongol records noting that they helped the Mongol army counter “enemy mantras.” And Genghis Khan’s death was mythologized—Tibetan sources claim he was killed by a Tangut arrow blessed by sorcery, guided by vengeance.
Was she princess, queen, or high priestess? What was her name? Could it have been Lhamo Dronma (a Tibetan epithet meaning “Goddess of Wrath”)? Or “Mi-nyag Machik” (after the legendary Tibetan yogini Machik Lapdrön)? We don’t know much about her life; and what we do know about her death is also the stuff of legend: that she threw herself into Qinghai Lake as Gyal Lhakhang fell, becoming a vengeful spirit and continuing to haunt Mongol armies as the “Ghost Queen of Koko Nor.” But perhaps this was a ruse, a fabrication for the official record, to throw the Mongol army off her track. She could have taken up residence in the Vajravahari Cave in Liangzhou, where many Tangut artifacts have been unearthed: columnist Rebecca Wong will be shortly publishing a piece about this possibility.

She and I have been exploring possibilities found in little-known sources, from oral traditions in Qinghai like circulating stories from the Tu (Monguor) and Tibetan villages around the cities Xining and Rebkong (Tongren), and Qinghai Lake) to stories collected by Chinese ethnographers in the 1980s (like Amdo Folk Narratives (1992)), about a mysterious yogini from Xixia who might have travelled to western China. The Red Annals” (Deb-ter Marpo) mentions “Tangut witches” aiding the Xixia resistance.
Nothing remains of Gyal Lhakang, apart from the tantalizing fact that later on, Tsongkhapa was born in the area, and the Gelug tradition he founded would build the great complex of Kumbum on the foundations of the Tangut structure. Could there be protector deity rituals here, or in other monasteries in Qinghai and Amdo, that carry the folk memory of a curse-wielding woman for the ethnic minorities of the Tu, Tibetan, and Monguor peoples? I should be blessed, then, that one teacher I took refuge under is a senior lama at Kumbum Monastery. It is incumbent on me to, at some point in time, pay a visit to find the trail of the Sorceress-Queen.
Related blog posts from BDG
Mahakala, Tangut and Mongol Deity of Ritual Warfare: Kublai Khan
Mahakala, Tangut and Mongol Deity of Ritual Warfare: The Guardian of Western Xia
Mahakala, Tangut and Mongol Deity of Ritual Warfare: The End of the State of Ten Thousand Secrets
Tangut Time
